


All Lives End, All Hearts Are Broken

by MidnightMinx90



Series: The Love of an Assassin [3]
Category: Assassin's Creed
Genre: Character Death, Cutting, M/M, Suicide, Triggers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-09
Updated: 2013-10-09
Packaged: 2017-12-28 22:09:00
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,967
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/997503
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MidnightMinx90/pseuds/MidnightMinx90
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The conclusion to the Love of an Assassin</p>
            </blockquote>





	All Lives End, All Hearts Are Broken

**Author's Note:**

> I've had this chapter for over a year now, and I was only going to upload it as soon as the parts before this was done. But seeing as I have immenseproblems with the Clay/Desmond chapter, I decided to upload this now

On the day Malik was murdered, Altaïr was away with Maria and their sons on a mission, and so he first heard of it when they came home, and that was some months after.   
He had known something was wrong though the moment it had happened; he just couldn’t tell what it was.  
He could very well describe the feeling though - it felt as if a hole had appeared in him and when feeling struck him he had fallen to his knees and wept, for it felt as if his heart had been ripped to shreds and all but a small part had left his body, leaving a gaping hole in its wake.

So when they returned back at Masyaf and got the message that Malik had been beheaded - for some said he had decided to take over the order and become Grand Master himself - Altaïr had locked himself in his study for days on end, refusing to talk to anyone.  
After staying in there for seven days, he left in the dead of the night for Jerusalem, needing to go back to the place where they became friends again and then lovers. 

He stayed in the city for a fortnight, visiting the bureau and all their secret hiding placed within and around the city, never eating anything but a piece of fruit every now and again, barely drinking and sleeping, spending every waking moment surrounded by memories and ghostly images provided by the Eagle sense.

When he returned to Masyaf, he threw himself into his work, trying his best to not stop to think about anything that would remind him of his lost love.

He never mourned like that again; not after neither the death of Sef or Maria, for Malik had always had all his love.

Thirty years Altaïr lived on without Malik, and the older he got, the easier it was to forget Malik was not with him anymore.  
He imagined seeing him in the hallways, his office, their sleeping quarters, the gardens and the training-area.  
The only place he could escape his presence was in the library he had made underneath the garden behind the fortress, so he often went there in order to have some time to think as he more and more frequently found himself talking with the apparition who appeared to be no more than in the middle of his twenties.

Altaïr often wished he himself could have died in battle and let his family take over, but he was granted no such luck.  
Thirty years exactly after Malik’s murder, he found he had enough; he refused to outlive him any longer.

For months and months he planned the moving of the order with Darim, and when the time was right, he bid his family goodbye and went into the chamber which was to be his tomb.

He put out all the torches in the hall after closing the door behind him.  
When he reached the chamber, he walked to the back of it and opened a secret compartment in which his Apple would reside.

Exhausted now and wanting no more than to move on, he closed the stone door, hiding the Apple from sight and sat down in the main chair in the room to rest; the last of his keys with memories lying on his lap, this last of his memories contained within.

Ending the spell which somehow made it possible, he closed his eyes, and said one simple sentence.  
“I’m coming my love.”  
The last thing Altaïr saw in this life was Malik’s hand reaching out to him, ready to start new adventures in a new life.

****

Ezio had wished to change the past ever since he returned from Cappadocia to find Sofia kidnapped and Yusuf dead.  
He had managed to stop the Templars and was prepared to ask or even beg Yusuf to accompany him and Sofia to Masyaf before returning with them to Italy.

That was all crushed now.

His thirst for vengeance was great, but he had to keep calm in order to rescue Sofia and still keep the keys to the Library of Masyaf.  
As he spoke to the Assassins over Yusuf’s grave, he had to fight hard with himself so he would not break down.

He had grieved many people in his life; first his father and brothers at the hands of the Templars and later on both Cristina and his uncle Mario, but never had he grieved a death like this.

And he blamed himself for it; he blamed himself for not having sent Sofia away; for not making sure enough Assassins were placed with Yusuf; for not knowing the face of the enemy.   
He blamed himself for not seeing the clues; he blamed himself for having killed Tarik without knowing where his loyalty truly lay.

The worst part was knowing all this too late and knowing that this knowledge would not help him bring his love back.  
As much as he cared for Sofia, he knew his love for Yusuf eclipsed his feelings for her; just as Leonardo’s had eclipsed Cristina’s.

The revenge wasn’t executed the way Ezio would have preferred, but it was nothing he could do about it.  
So he went with Sofia to Masyaf and found Altaïr’s remains as well as the Apple, which he chose to leave behind; he had enough adventures for a lifetime and wanted nothing more than to end his life as an assassin for all the deaths it had caused him.

When he arrived back in Italy with Sofia, he left her with his mother and sister before going to France to visit Leonardo. They had parted as friends when Ezio left on his journey, knowing they might never meet again in this life.  
He got two days with Leonardo before he passed away.  
Ezio envied him his death; he had lived his life as he had wanted, doing what he loved and had the fortune of closing his eyes and never opening them again.  
Such a peaceful death, one Ezio had used to want for himself as he grew older.  
Now, he wasn’t so sure.  
He loved Sofia, and he wanted a family, but he did not know how he was to live on with that gaping hole in his chest which the deaths of his family and lovers had left him with.  
Would there still be enough after his mother’s passing to give to Claudia, Sofia and the children they might have?

Ezio enjoyed his retired life, living on a vineyard with Sofia and their two children, but it left him with too much time to think about lives lost.   
For the first time in many years, Ezio thought about all the families he had ripped apart by killing Templars, simply because they did as they were told.

Growing weaker every day, Ezio felt he wouldn’t have the time he needed to tell Sofia and their children how much they meant to him, so he wrote several letters to them and his sister.  
But it was the last letter which meant the most; the one that bore Sofia’s name, for in it, hidden behind the words to her, his affections for Cristina, Leonardo and most of all Yusuf were described, for he knew not of any other way to describe it.

He had spent so many years believing he would die in battle, so in those short, few seconds he had to think after the poison blade pierced him, he thought about how this might actually be for him.  
It would be both that of battle - for he was still an assassin at the core - and the death he had sought in his youth - the still, quiet one after a life lived to completion.

As his gaze faltered, he could envision three persons waiting for him; Leonardo and Cristina in the back, barely visible and as young as they were when all of this started, and Yusuf at the front - some years younger than Ezio had ever seen him, but with the playful and teasing look upon his face nonetheless.

But in Yusuf’s eyes none of that was visible, there was just all the love he felt for Ezio.

*****

Shaun’s death was the most mundane, but all the more shocking for that, as it was unexpected; he was shot by accident by a burglar who broke into the apartment he shared with Desmond.

Had Desmond been at home, he most likely would have lived, but Desmond was away at work as a bartender in the pub they owned with Rebecca. 

The paramedics arrived too late, and Shaun was declared dead in the ambulance.

Desmond lost his mind completely then.

When he’d been inside the animus, he had gotten to know Clay, and had even fallen in love with him, though he still loved Shaun.  
Wasn’t like he could help it though, and he had really enjoyed 16’s company, even if he was nothing but a fragment and spoke utter madness most of the time.

He had hoped to never end up like good ol’ 16 - the insane interior decorator as he’d once called him.   
Looks like insanity runs in the blood though.

It didn’t take long before Desmond was admitted to a mental hospital.  
He never spoke to any of the other patients and barely said anything to his doctors; he just sat in a corner with his back against the world and stared into the emptyness.

Sometimes his eyes changed colour, but it didn’t help him distinguish friend from foe, as the madness broke him more and more each day and the colours that surrounded everyone swarmed together creating mixes of red, blue and gold, sometimes even white.

He lost track of time, and one day he had enough.  
Somehow, he managed to break out of the facility, most likely due to the skills he had learned from being inside the Animus. 

He escaped back to the pub, which was now closed, broke in, and opened a small compartment only Shaun, Rebecca and himself knew of: it contained the hidden blade he’d inherited and dared not keep anywhere else. Then he grabbed the blade and the key which was in there as well.

From there on he stole a motorcycle and made his way to the cottage Shaun and he owned which lay by the shore.  
It was a white-washed one with straw-roof, placed among the dunes of sand.

It wasn’t a large one, just two rooms and a small bathroom, with pale wooden floors and white-washed walls inside as well with pastel coloured fabrics and decorations.

Which made it perfect for his plan.

He started by cutting his legs and using the blood from them, before moving on to his upper body, carving patterns which only made sense to him, and some which meant something to Clay onto his skin, before repeating the patterns on the walls, floors, carpets and furniture.  
He worked systematically; always making sure the symbols and patterns maintained the perfect proportions.  
Desmond didn’t feel anything while he worked; his mind cleared of everything except what he was drawing at that exact moment.

Lastly, he moved to his arms.

He used the blood from them to write one last message on the only free stop on the walls.  
“It’s all their fault. The voices, the ghosts, the memories… Those Who Came Before. They won. I’m coming Shaun.”  
The last word was written by the blood that poured out from his left wrist, and the last markings on the walls came from Desmond’s bloodied fingers as his hand failed to support him any longer and he sank to the floor.

He still didn’t feel anything and his mind was empty as his last thought was wondering if Shaun’s outstretched hand was real or not.

The End

**Author's Note:**

> I hate myself enough for this, so I hope you readers won't hate me too much as well...


End file.
